The wolf nuzzled his hand, its tongue lapping once, then turned and bounded away, a blur of silver in the trees, soon vanished from sight. The great howling faded with it.
Hera Drakil and the other Seordah came forward, forming a circle around him, the shadowy warriors emerging from the trees to surround him, men and women of fighting age all holding their war clubs out before them as one. Hera Drakil raised his own club, holding it flat and level. “Tomorrow,” the Seordah chief said, “I will sing my war song to the rising sun, and guide you through this forest.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“No fires are to be lit, no wood cut, no game taken. All men will remain in their companies and not wander away from the line of march. We walk only where the Seordah tell us.”
He saw some of his captains exchange wary glances, Adal’s face betraying the most unease. “And punishment for transgression, my lord?” he asked.
“Punishment won’t be needed,” Vaelin said. “The Seordah will enforce these rules, of that they have left me in little doubt.”
“I would be remiss, my lord, if I did not report the temper of the men,” Adal went on. “Open dissent is quickly quelled, as per your order, but we cannot still every tongue.”
“What is it now?” Vaelin ran a weary hand through his hair. The meeting with Nersus Sil Nin had left him troubled, the scarcity of knowledge she could impart leaving an irksome uncertainty. Also, he was coming to realise why he had never relished command. They’re always so endlessly malcontent. “Boots too hard? Training too tough?”
“They’re scared of the forest,” Nortah said. “Not that I blame them. Scares the life out of me and I’ve yet to set foot in it.”
“I see,” Vaelin said. “Well, any man too craven to walk through some trees has my permission to leave. Once they’ve surrendered their arms, boots, supplies and any pay they’ve received to date, they can make their way home and wait for a Volarian fleet to appear and enjoy the ensuing spectacle of slaughter. Perhaps then they’ll consider the true price of cowardice.” He rested balled fists on the map table, sighing through gritted teeth. “Or you could just give me a list of the most vocal grumblers and I’ll have them flogged.”
“I’ll speak to them,” Dahrena said as the captains fidgeted in uncomfortable silence. “Allay some fears.”
Vaelin gave a wordless nod and gestured for Brother Hollun to give his daily report on the state of the supplies.
“What did she tell you?” Dahrena asked when the captains had been dismissed. From outside the tent came the noise of the camp breaking up as the army prepared to march into the forest. “To have befouled your mood so.”
“It’s more what she didn’t tell me,” he replied. “She had no answers, my lady. No great wisdom to guide our path. Just a tired old woman suffering her final vision of a future she hates.”
Dahrena said nothing for a moment, but her gaze lingered on his face. He noticed it had done so since they returned from the forest. “The wolf,” she said. “You’ve seen it before.”
He nodded.
“So have I. When I was very little, the night father found me, it blessed me with its tongue . . .” Her gaze was distant, almost trance like. She blinked, shaking her head and rising. “I should go and make some speeches.”
◆ ◆ ◆
In the end there were none who refused to enter the forest, Dahrena’s words once again carrying sufficient weight to ensure loyalty. They love her, Vaelin decided, seeing the ease with which she moved amongst the men, the laughter she exchanged, seemingly able to recall every face and name without effort. He knew it was not a gift he held, most men who had followed him had done so out of duty or fear. He could only hope their love for her and fear of him would be enough when they finally met the Volarians.
The North Guard were first to enter the forest, dismounted and leading their horses through the trees, dozens of Seordah warriors on all sides looking on in stern silence. Vaelin led the First Regiment of Foot next. He had divided the army into ten regiments of about a thousand men each, numbered accordingly, though he had allowed them to decide on their own banners. The First were mostly miners and had adopted a banner showing crossed pickaxes on a blue background. They were led, albeit with much assistance from a North Guard sergeant, by Foreman Ultin from Reaver’s Gulch.
“Me, walking the great forest,” he said in wonder, eyes wide as he stared about. “Commanding a regiment at y’lordship’s side, too. And my old dad said I’d never climb no higher than emptying the foreman’s piss-bucket.”
“How long since you left Renfael, Captain?” Vaelin asked him.
“Just Ultin, if you please, m’lord. Even the lads can’t keep a straight face when they call me captain.” He glanced back at his men. “Ain’t that right, you disrespectful dogs?”
“Kiss my hole, Ultin,” one of the men in the front rank said. He blanched a little at Vaelin’s stare and quickly looked down. Vaelin stilled the rebuke on his tongue, seeing the sweat on the man’s forehead and the fear on his comrades’ faces, their eyes constantly roaming the trees.
“More’n fifteen years, m’lord,” Ultin said. “Since I left the old stinkhole I called home. Can’t say as I miss it much. Just another mean mining village, full of mean people paid mean wages by a mean lord. One day I heard about the Reaches from a tinker, said a miner could earn four times as much there, if he didn’t mind the cold and the savages. Got meself on a ship soon as I had enough for a berth. Never gave no thought to goin’ back, till now.”
If there’s anything to go back to, Vaelin thought.
Each regiment was given a Seordah guide, Hera Drakil leading the First, his communication confined mostly to pointing or holding up a hand to signal a halt. He seemed even more reluctant to engage with Vaelin than he had at their first meeting, avoiding his gaze and keeping to his own language, forcing Dahrena to continue as translator. The wolf, Vaelin surmised. They don’t appreciate being made to feel fear in their own forest.
The Seordah chief led them to a clearing around a shallow creek where they would camp for the night. In accordance with Vaelin’s orders no fires were started and the men were obliged to huddle in their cloaks, eating cold hard-tack with some cured meat. There was little talk and no singing, men often starting at the sounds of the forest.
“What’s that?” Ultin asked in a whisper as a faint wailing came to them from the surrounding blackness.
“Wild cat,” Dahrena said. “Looking for some female company.”
Vaelin found Hera Drakil perched on a large boulder in the middle of the creek. The water was shallow but the splashes gave ample signal of any visitors, the Seordah’s eyes narrowing at Vaelin’s approach. He offered no greeting and went back to unstringing his bow, a flat-staved weapon with a thick leather-wrapped centre. Vaelin noticed his arrows were headed with some kind of dark shiny material rather than iron. “Can you pierce armour with those?” he asked.
Hera Drakil took one of the arrows and held it up, the edge of the head catching the moonlight and Vaelin saw it was glass rather than flint. “From the hill country,” the Seordah said. “Have to fight the Lonak to get it. Cuts through anything if you get close enough.”
“And that?” Vaelin nodded at the war club placed within reach. It was about a yard long, double curved like an axe handle with a notched grip and a blunt head resembling the misshapen head of a shovel. A wicked ten-inch spike protruded from the wood an inch short of the head. “Will it hold against a blow from a sword?”
“Why not try?” The Seordah looked him up and down. “Except you have no sword.” He laid his bow aside and picked up the club, holding it out to Vaelin. He took it and tried a few swings, finding it light, the grip comfortable. The wood it was fashioned from was unfamiliar, dark and smooth, the grain hardly perceptible under his fingers.
“Black-heart tree,” Hera Drakil explained. “Wood is soft when it’s cut and shaped, grows hard like rock when placed in fire. It won’t break, Beral Shak Ur.”
Vaelin inclined his head and handed the club back. “You haven’t asked what the blind woman told me.”
“She said we should join with you. Her visions are well-known to the Seordah.”
“But you were going to deny her words.”
“Your people have no gods, neither do mine. The blind woman lived many years ago and had visions of the future. Most came true, some did not. We are guided by her, we do not worship her.”
“What do you worship?”
For the first time the Seordah’s face showed some sign of amusement, a grin coming to his lips. “You are standing in what we worship, Beral Shak Ur. You call this place the great forest, we call it Seordah, for it is us and we are it.”
“To fight our enemy you’ll have to leave it.”
“I’ve done so before, when I went to see your land with the last Tower Lord. I saw many things there, all of them ugly.”
“What you’ll see this time will be uglier still.”
“Yes.” The Seordah put his club aside and rested back against the rock, closing his eyes. “It will.”